skinny love | barry allen

47

"So- what are we gonna call him?" I heard Barry ask in the cortex, when I walked through the corridor, holding a case file on my hands.

Wally's voice follows, "You mean like a nickname?"

"Yeah, Cisco does it for all of them, he's like the master of it-" Barry replies, "Can't just call him Suspect on a Motorcycle, right?-"

"Hi-" I walked into the cortex, running a hand through my hair, before placing the file I held in front of Joe, "I'm sorry- did I miss everything? I was held up at work- Joe, could you take a look at this for me?-"

The sound of something shattering caught me off guard, making my head snap up towards where the sound came from, my eyes falling onto Barry who was staring at me, his eyes wide, looking at me as if I had just come back from the dead, a shattered glass of water on the ground.

Joe looks at him, "You okay, Bare?"

"I- uhm, yeah-" Barry blinks, clearing his throat, his heading snapping towards Cisco, "Uhm- what do you think?"

"How about Thief?" Cisco's voice was monotone, "He robs stuff- let's just call him Thief."

"Gotta get to the gym." Cisco clears his throat when silence filled the room, "Excuse me."

"The gym?" Barry was confused when Cisco left the room, "Is he, like, working out now? Or-"

"You know, Barry, sometimes your jokes just aren't very funny." Caitlin stands up and leaves the room.

Iris sighs and stood up when she left the room, "I should get back to the paper-"

"It's okay- I was just leaving." Joe got up, grabbing his keys and the file, looking at him, "Why don't I give this to you back at the precinct? I'll look it over and stop by your desk-"

I nodded slowly, "Yeah- alright-"

"Hey, guys-" Barry clears his throat and stops them both, "Look, hey, I'm sorry. I know you guys aren't speaking to each other right now, but- I was just thinking maybe we could talk about why that is for a minute?-"

"Okay, I'm sorry!" Barry blurts out when they both started to deny, "I'm sorry, I just thought, I don't know, maybe it would be good for you guys just to- hear it said out loud."

Iris was tense, "This is because of what he did, Barry, not me-"

"Iris-" Joe began to say.

"What?" Iris looks at him, her tone snappy, "What could you possibly have to say?-"

Joe sighs lightly, then shakes his head, looking between Barry and I, "I'll just see you two at the station, all right?-"

"Uh, give me a lift to CCU?" Wally got up.

Barry looks back at Wally who walked over to Joe, "So- you're still taking engineering classes?-"

Wally looks at him weird, "Uh- yeah?"

"All right, well, good- good luck with that." Barry calls out, clearing his throat and shutting up quickly, looking down at his feet as they walked away.

"Iris-" I trailed off, grabbing my car keys, my eyes glued to Barry, "I'll give you a lift to CCPN- why don't you go and wait in the car for me?"

"Sure-" Iris caught the keys I tossed toward her, before heading down to the car, leaving just Barry and I in the cortex, who was already staring at me.

"So-" I trailed off, walking towards him, standing in front of him, "What's wrong with you?"

Barry swallows hard, "Nothing-"